James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

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All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

My son Dan, who is now a music major in college, spent a lot of time playing along with CDs when he was 10 or 11 years old. In this way he taught himself how to play the Irish button accordion.

I sketched him in one evening amid the clutter of my painting studio. I enjoy this kind of unstudied natural situation, where someone is just doing what they love to do, without consciously posing.

My main concern was how to simplify the scene so that I had only two principalities of tone. Using 2B and 4B graphite pencils, I rendered his accordion and his hair as fairly uninterrupted dark shapes, which helped to bring out the light shape of his left arm.

I love the accordian! You have the coolest family! Wonderful, sketch, it has a great feel of animation and life to it. I bookmarked thier Myspace page, they have an amazing sound. They should come up here, people here go nuts for traditional music you can actually dance to.

I love poses that aren't posed. It seems as if he doesn't have a clue that you're sketching him. I see that he was going to be traveling in thailand. I hope that he wasn't near the recent Myanmar cyclone and is safe.